[MUD-Dev] Real lawsuit over virtual property

[Dave Rickey]

http://lumthemad.net/story.php?story=2118

Spotted on LtM, NCSoft is being sued by the winners of a siege for
resetting the servers and invalidating their acquisition of the
castle.  I think I get to say "I told you so" somewhere in here.

---+++

--<cut>--
Jun.13.2001
by reporter I Kayon
(translated into English by Lineage Gazetteer)

Members of an online game have filed a lawsuit to reclaim virtual
territory.

This recently, as incidents of online item hacking and offline item
trading causing lawsuits, discussion of "cyber property rights" is
expected.

Representing a group of like-minded Lineage players (a bloodpledge),
An (age 31), submitted a lawsuit calling for the return of "Giran
castle" to Seoul District Court on the 13th.

NCsoft has been offering the online game Lineage since 1998 (with
over 1 million players), becoming one of the largest online game
companies.

The "Giran castle" An demanded restoration of began operation in
Lineage's Episode 8 (Giran) last month and is the fourth such castle
within the game.

The bloodpledge which takes the castle, controls the virtual
territory within the game and gains tax revenues. This tax money
greatly increases the ability to buy various weapons, so competition
to control the castles is fierce.

As the leader of a bloodpledge, An and 100 pledge members fought
with other bloodpledges at the known siege time and took Giran
castle. But afterward the siege was declared invalid and the server
was reset, causing the loss of the castle and then the lawsuit.

NCsoft explained, "at that time, due to a program error, the siege
did not run normally, so in accordance with the user agreement, it
was declared invalid and the server was reset."
--<cut>--
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